My birthday is in early November, and I turned 18 the day before an off-year election. I proudly voted that year, though nothing discernible changed in my world because of it.

On the day before my 19th birthday, I went to the polls at my old elementary school in Indiana and voted for the opposite presidential candidate from my parents. (I figured I canceled one of them out.) Though my vote wasn't enough to carry the state, my candidate won the electoral college and the presidency.

Back then, I had been a "good Methodist girl" my whole life, though not one who thought very much about the intersection between faith and politics.

Then followed a couple of decades during which I didn't think much about the intersection of faith with anything at all, being mostly concerned with my children, my career, my home, and my falling-apart marriage. I went for at least 10 years without setting foot in a church other than on Christmas Eve.

In God's time and God's way, I ended up back in church. And then I ended up getting ordained and being in front of a church every Sunday! Surely God is amused. And I learned that people often assume things about church-going people, and especially their pastors, which are not necessarily true.

Our nation is sorely divided over so many issues. You know the list as well as I do: How much should we pay in taxes, and how should the money be used? Is everyone entitled to food, shelter, medical care -- even if they don't seem to be "trying"? Who gets to decide? What should we do as a society about abortions, medical insurance, treatment of homosexuals, gun control? The list goes on and on.

People often assume where I stand on the issues simply because I am an ordained member of the Christian clergy, and they've heard what "Christians" think. In many cases they are wrong about me, and about many people I know.

A man came into my office a couple of weeks ago to urge me to participate in something called Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an act of civil disobedience by a group of pastors who apparently are going to "stand up against the IRS" on Oct. 7 and tell their congregations how to vote.

As with all nonprofit organizations, churches cannot participate in political campaigns, for or against any particular candidate. If I were to endorse a candidate from the pulpit, we could lose our tax-exempt status.

My visitor was sure I felt constrained by these rules, and that they made it impossible for me to preach the Gospel.

I told him I felt no such thing.

At our church we pray every week for our world; for our local, state, and national government; for our own church and every church. We believe it is our duty as well as our privilege to vote, and that our choices can and should be guided by our faith. We have the opportunity to choose leaders who say they will move forward on things we care about.

And as far as I can tell, what Jesus cared about was how we treat each other and especially how we treat those among us who are the most vulnerable. Jesus says that loving God means loving our neighbor, whoever our neighbor is.

The first Sunday of October is set aside by many denominations as a day to recognize the things that we hold in common, rather than the things that divide us.

So on Oct. 7 at the Danbury United Methodist Church we will be celebrating World Communion Sunday (WCS), not Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

We will participate anew in the WCS ancient ritual, in solidarity with people around the world.

We will sing songs that aren't in our native language, and we will pray, as always, for our church, our city, our nation, and our world.

And I will urge everyone to vote. As I told the visitor, I preach the Gospel every time I stand up in front of my congregation. And I trust that they are quite capable of figuring out what to do with the Gospel when they get to the voting booth.

The Rev. Karen Karpow is pastor of Danbury United Methodist Church, 5 Clapboard Ridge Road, Danbury, CT 06811. www.DanburyMethodist.org. She can be reached at DanburyUMC@sbcglobal.net or 203-743-1503.